ny will of
her own.

He took his seat by her side, and a moment later they were bowling
slowly down the wide avenue through which he had driven so furiously but
a little while before.

"Now, Jessie," he began, tremulously; "listen to me, I pray you. I have
traveled all the way back to Boston for your dear sake, to see you, to
hold your hands, to speak with you, and to tell you I do not consider
the little tear-blotted note you sent me, a fitting answer to my letter.
I can not take 'no,' for an answer, Jessie, dear. You could not mean it.
When I read what you wrote me, in answer to my burning words of love, it
nearly unmanned me. You said, in that little note, that you did care for
me; you acknowledged it. Now, I ask you, why, if this be true, would you
doom me, as well as yourself, to a life of misery. You say there is a
mystery, deep and fathomless, which separates us from each other for all
time to come? This I must refuse to believe. You say it is something
which my mother knows? Will you confess to me, Jessie, my darling, my
precious one, just what you mean? Remember that the happiness of two
lives hangs upon your answer."

The girl was crying as though her heart would break, her lovely face
buried in her hands.

He sat by her side very gravely, waiting until the storm of tears should
have subsided.

He well knew that it was better that such grief, which seemed to rend
her very soul, should waste itself in tears. At length, when her sobs
grew fainter and she became calmer, he ventured to speak once more.

"I beg you to tell me, Jessie," he went on, "just what it is that holds
our two lives asunder."

He longed with all his soul to take her in his arms, pillow the golden
head on his breast, and let her weep her grief out there. But he must
not; he must control the longing that was eating his heart away.

"Be candid with me, Jessie," he said, his voice trembling and husky. "Do
not conceal anything from me. The hour has come when nothing but
frankness will answer, and I must know all, from beginning to end. What
is it, I ask again, that my mother knows which you alluded to in your
note, saying that it had the power to part us? Dear little Jessie, sweet
one, confide in me! I repeat, keep nothing from me."

Through the tears which lay trembling on her long lashes, Jessie raised
her lovely blue eyes and looked at him, her lips quivering piteously.

For an instant she could not speak, so great was her emotion;